


such a fool for sacrifice

by atlantisairlock



Series: quiet nights poured over ice & tanqueray: shoot x halsey [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Alternate Universe - Marvel Avengers Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Female Friendship, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 03:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4944628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>samantha 'root' groves dies in 1945,</p><p>but captain america doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	such a fool for sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> companion piece to [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4962853).

Samantha 'Root' Groves dies in 1945, after she plunges into the ocean. 

Sameen Shaw dies in 1945, after Captain America doesn't manage to save her.

Samantha 'Root' Groves dies in 1945, but not the way everybody thinks she does. 

Sameen Shaw dies in 1945, but not the way everybody thinks she does.

Samantha 'Root' Groves dies in 1945,

but Captain America doesn't. 

 

 

Here's what the Avengers don't understand - it's not as hard as they imagine to get used to the twenty-first century. Sure, laptops and smartphones are a far cry from the typewriters and rotaries from her day, but despite everything, the world is still the same. Cold and harsh and crowded, just a little more technologically advanced than she remembers. 

With her permission, they remove the cochlear implant and bring it to the SHIELD labs. The Machine is conspicuously quiet in her ear, and she overhears a junior technician's comment about how ancient the technology is. She idly remembers Harold's comment about the cutting-edge tech she had in her head, seventy years ago, and tries to bury the riptide of pain threatening to swallow her whole. 

She learns a lot of things from Nick Fury - about this new world, about post-war America, about her friends. The first thing that sends her spiralling is realising that she is well and truly alone.

 

 

She agrees to join the Avengers, because she is still Captain America, whether it's '45 or '15, and she will protect this country and defend it to her last breath. 

The first proper friend she makes amongst the team, the first one of them she actually likes, is Natasha - go figure. Natasha is the one to drive her to her friends' graves, the one who sits by respectfully while she says her goodbyes, seventy years too late. 

She should be there with them, she thinks. Six feet under. That's where she belongs. With them.

With Sameen.

Sameen doesn't have a gravestone, unlike Harold and John, Lionel and Joss. _They never found her body either,_ Nick informs her, so Root swings by the Smithsonian and stares up at the grainy black-and-white videos and huge, multicoloured displays framed on whitewashed walls. 

In them, she is laughing, with Sameen's arm around her shoulders. 

In them, Sameen is  _alive._

 

 

_Who's the girl?_

Natasha asks her that one day when they're in a safe house, after a particularly harrowing mission. Root's busy studying the photograph she keeps safely tucked in her uniform whenever she's out on the field, and doesn't even notice Natasha staring over her shoulder until she speaks. The Black Widow gently taps the surface of the photograph, fingertip resting on Sameen's chest. Root feels the air being knocked out of her lungs, her breath hitching.

 _Shaw,_ she replies, her voice cracking down the middle.  _Her name was Shaw._

Natasha nods sympathetically.  _Your friend,_ she states calmly, matter-of-fact. 

Root thinks of Sameen, thinks of the nights they shared in the bitter cold, huddling together while they bruised each other's mouths with kisses, thinks of the first time Sameen looped an arm around her hips and tugged her close and held her for the rest of the night, and manages to chuckle, soft and hoarse.  _My friend,_ she echoes. There is no warmth in the words.

 _She could be alive,_ Natasha responds, tilting her head back against the blank wall of the safe house.  _You fell, and you're alive today._

Root doesn't reply, doesn't say a word even when Natasha gets up and heads to the makeshift kitchen to brew them a cup of coffee. She can't allow herself to hope, she knows. It would hurt far too much. 

 

 

And then the Winter Soldier kills Nick Fury.

 

 

 _Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe she exists,_ is what Natasha says when Root asks.  _Those that do call her the Winter Soldier. She's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years._  She pauses, eyes going dark. _Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tyres near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so she shot him straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling. And then she was gone._

 _So she's a ghost story,_ Root answers, with more of an edge to her voice than she intends, more bitterness, and it reminds her of snow, and ice, and 1945, and Natasha looks up at her with one hand on her shoulder.  _So were you._

 

 

She ends up fighting a ghost story.

Root's got her hands on her gun and her feet planted solid on the ground and she's facing the legend that the intelligence community has dubbed the Winter Soldier, the woman who murdered Nick Fury, with those  _eyes -_

her arm, her posture, her  _eyes -_

Root can't breathe. Can't speak. Can't see. For a moment she's back on that train, clinging on to the bars for dear life and watching as the only woman she's ever loved falls, falls, falls. 

 _Sameen,_ she says, a mere whisper as she begins to lower the gun she's got levelled against her opponent.  _Sameen._

Sameen Shaw takes one step forward, and her eyes are cold, hard, haunted. There's no sign of recognition, and her expression is blank when she speaks.

_Who the hell is Sameen?_

Samantha 'Root' Groves dies in 2015, again.

 

 

She thinks she wakes up in the medical bay, with Natasha at her side and her shield at the foot of the bed. 

_You're awake._

_Sameen,_ Root says, hoarse and weak.  _Did she -_

 _The Winter Soldier got away._ Natasha doesn't meet her eyes, and Root closes hers, one hand drifting to the pocket containing the photograph. There is comforting silence in the med bay for a minute or so, and then Natasha speaks again.  _Was it her?_

 _It was her._ The words stick in her throat.  _She looked right at me, like she didn't even know me._

 _She didn't,_ Natasha answers sadly, and Root just  _knows._ Samaritan. It must have been. They must have found her, when she fell, and turned her into... _this._  The world spins, and Root wonders despairingly if she'll ever be free of an ancient threat. Seventy years, and still Samaritan haunts her. 

 _I have to find her, Natasha,_  Root whispers.  _Even when I had nothing, I had Sameen. I have to..._

There is a flash of  _something_ in Natasha's eyes. _I understand._

Root thinks she actually might. 

 

 

Maria Hill informs Root that she's going to have to save the world.

Root thinks she might have to get used to this.

 _This is Samaritan,_ Natasha warns her. _She'll be there. Remember that, Root. She doesn't know you._

 _She will,_ Root replies. _Now le_ _t's go kick some ass._

 

 

Fighting her way onto the helicarrier is easier than facing Sameen down, all things considered. it goes against all of her self-preservation instincts, to let the Winter Soldier pummel her till she's bruised and broken and bleeding. Maria is screaming at her through the earpiece, but Root's got her gaze locked on Sameen and that's all she can see right now.

 _You know me,_ she says, blood dripping out of the side of her mouth. 

 _No, I don't,_ the Winter Soldier answers, her fist slamming into Root's chest. She feels a rib snap, and she tightens her grip on Sameen's arm.  _Sameen. Please. You've known me your whole life. Your name is Sameen. Sameen Shaw._

 _Shut up!_ Sameen screams at her, louder now, knocking Root's pistol out of her hand and sending it spinning too far out of her reach. Root doesn't fight back, not even when the next blow lands on her face, leaving her stumbling back, vulnerable and gasping. Her knees buckle, but she manages to look up at Sameen, manages to meet her eyes. _I'm not going to fight you. Sameen. You're my friend. My lover. Please._

There is nothing in her eyes. Sameen charges forward, and Root hears her snarl the words  _you're my mission_ before the blows keep landing, strong, precise, and not for the first time, Root realises she's going to die. For real, this time. It's almost a relief. A sense of freedom. Before she can stop herself, she chokes out a laugh, a tear sliding down her face.

This, Sameen sees. Her arm stills even as it's being pulled back to slam another punch into Root's gut, and for a moment bewilderment flickers into the glassy brown eyes. Root manages a smile, because something settles inside her, a peace of sorts. Her fingers brush against Sameen's waist, a feeble effort. 

 _Do it. Finish it. Because I'm with you._ She chokes on the blood in her mouth, spits it out along with the rest of the sentence.  _Till the end of the line._

 

 

In 1945, Samantha 'Root' Groves falls into the ocean, and she dies.

In 2015, Samantha 'Root' Groves falls into the Potomac, and she doesn't.

 

 

The water is cold. but not as cold as the sea was, then. 

The world is greyscale, static. Before she passes out, Root thinks she sees the briefest gleam of metal reflecting off the sunlight, thinks she feels something grip her arm before she sinks to the very bottom. 

She closes her eyes. 

 

 

She wakes up to Natasha's mock-bored voice asking her: _out of curiosity, how many times do you intend for me to sit by you in the med bay while the doctors fuss over you?_

She laughs. It's a good feeling. _I thought I was dead._

_We thought you were, too._

_So, who pulled me out of the river?_

Natasha freezes.  _How about you rest?_

Root stops as she's about to reach for a glass of water conveniently placed on the bedside table. _Natasha. Who pulled me out of the river?_

But even before Natasha replies, she already knows.

 

 

She's forced to stay in medical for a week, even though the serum does its job and she's practically healed after three days or so. Natasha's in and out, sneaking around doing her thing as the Black Widow. Root's content not to know what she's doing, until the morning her friend rushes in, speaks quietly and dangerously to the head doctor in charge for a minute, and the next thing Root knows, she's in the passenger seat of a Honda Civic doing a solid 120 down a quiet side road. 

_Where are we going?_

_You'll see,_ Natasha answers tersely, putting her foot down on the accelerator, and Root trusts her enough to watch, and wait.

 

 

Three minutes later they're at the Smithsonian and Natasha's practically dragging her to one of the outdoor memorials, and Root just  _stops_ when she sees -

_Sameen._

The figure standing in front of the Shaw Memorial stops dead, tenses to run, but Root can't bear the thought of losing her  _again._ When she crosses the length of the field in five strides, injuries be damned, she grabs Sameen's forearm and doesn't let go.

She's warm, real, alive.

_Sameen._

Sameen looks at her. looks into her. There is something dark in her eyes that Root recognises as pain. _I knew you._

 _Yes,_ Root answers breathlessly, and she's aware that Natasha's lingering behind, one hand on the gun in her holster just in case, and she's grateful but she knows it won't be necessary, not anymore.  _You knew me. You know_   _me._ _  
_

Seemingly against her will, Sameen lifts her left arm, brushes the pads of her fingers against Root's cheek. The metal is cold against her skin and Root breathes out a soft sigh, leaning into her touch. 

 _Root,_ Sameen says, cautiously, warily, sounding almost scared, and something explodes like a starburst inside Root's chest, sweet under her tongue. _It's me._

The hug feels foreign, but right, and Root chokes back a sob.  _You saved me._

 _Help me,_ Sameen answers. _I want to remember. I can't. But I want to._

 _I know,_ Root says, and steps into her embrace, presses her lips to Sameen's, their first kiss since 1945 -

and Sameen begins to remember. 


End file.
